According to research by the American Marriage and Family Therapy Association (AAMFT), 98% of couples who try marriage counseling report that their therapists are “excellent” or “good.”. Of couples who try marriage counseling, 90% feel their emotional health is improving and two-thirds report improvement. There are several reasons why a couple may seek professional help for their relationship. Marriage counseling and couples counseling can be very effective, especially when started sooner rather than later.
There is no magic formula that can fix a broken relationship, but many therapists have had incredible success using a type of therapy called emotionally focused therapy or EFT. By asking “does marriage counseling work? , statistics show that the answer is usually yes when couples use EFT. EFT works by helping a couple understand and reorganize their emotional responses to things. By working with their emotional cycles, a couple can come to a greater understanding of each other, and this can help them create new cycles of interaction.
When couples turn to EFT, 90 percent of them report significant improvements in their relationship. Between 70 and 75 percent of couples who are struggling can move to recovery through EFT. Essentially, EFT helps a couple foster their attachment in healthy and productive ways. In the process of marriage counseling, some couples may find that it is healthier for them to be apart.
However, for those relationships that can be saved, and for those couples willing to commit to the process, marriage therapy can remind them why they fell in love and keep them that way. Contrary to what some may believe, it's not about pointing the finger at who did what or who is to blame. Rather, “couples therapy provides tools to communicate and ask for what you need,” says Tracy Ross, a family and relationship therapist in New York City. Couples often forget what brought them together in the first place, why they fell in love, Saltz observes.
Couples therapy can help rekindle that. Suddenly finding yourself caring for a sick parent, which can consume a lot of your time and attention, presents a different set of challenges. If your spouse doesn't understand stress or support it, it can lead to feelings of frustration and resentment. Couples therapy can help you deal with the new normal by reestablishing the connection you and your partner once shared.
Marriage counseling has positive results for 70% of couples receiving treatment when treatment is offered by a trained marriage therapist. About half of couples who receive marriage counseling say it helped them resolve all or almost all of their serious problems. Working with a trained marriage therapist is very important to achieve the best possible results. Many counselors are trained to work with people, but working with couples is very different, as the counselor has to balance two different versions of the married couple's experiences to help them find common ground.
Several factors affect the success of marriage counseling, such as how quickly the couple begins therapy, whether the type of therapy chosen is ideal for their problem, and the willingness of both spouses to work hard to repair their marriage. Marriage problems come in all shapes and sizes; they range from feeling a little stagnant or stale in the relationship and wanting to adjust things to more intense issues that may be threatening marriage. According to some research, about a quarter of couples receiving marriage counseling report that their relationship worsens two years after ending therapy, and up to 38 percent of couples receiving marriage counseling are divorced within four years of ending therapy. If you want more detailed information about marriage counseling, you can learn more on the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) website.
Sadly, that statistic can make people feel like their marriage is halfway through even before it starts, and unfortunately, that statistic may not be true for modern marriages. . .
